Thoughts, ideas, and lessons learned from real-world customer engagements and interactions...
Are your customers going out with the bath water?
25 Aug 2011 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Customer Experience, Customers
The other day we were working with a customer to finalize their CRM strategy. As we were putting together some of the pricing details of our recommended CRM, we noticed that they were offering a special pricing offer that represented anywhere from 30-50% off of their regular price. As always, we checked the fine print and sure enough the special pricing offer was only for NEW customers.
Now, I am sure that everyone reading this can point to examples of this type of promotion that companies put in place to attract new customers during slower times. However, we would like to take this opportunity to challenge companies to resist using this type of tactic which can ultimately devalue the perception of your solution within the market, and can alienate the customers who have already validated your solution with their purchases.
A key word for customer alignment
12 May 2011 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Customer Alignment, Customers
One of the key words that is vital to successfully building customer alignment is “Trust”. In order to create the type of customer alignment that leads to long lasting mutually beneficial relationships, customers will need to:
– Trust that you are equally focused on their best interests as well as yours.
– Trust that you are building a relationship for the long-term and not just for short-term gains.
– Trust that your product or service will do what you said that it will do.
– Trust that before making any major product decisions, you will solicit input from them or others within their industry.
– Trust that your support will be there when they need it.
– Trust that the feedback and input that they offer gets considered even though it may not always be used.
– Trust that you will continue to focus on building solutions that meet their needs as well as others within their industry.
– Trust that the confidential information remains confidential.
– Trust that any referrals that they offer will be treated with the same level of service as they receive.
What are you doing to build trust with your customers?
Apple aligns itself with the Customer Pulse
4 May 2011 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Customer Alignment
There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Apple is a leader within the computing industry. As a company, they are consistently recognized for not just understanding…but actually anticipating customer needs, wants, and trends. On the surface it may seem like the company is made up of designers who have extraordinary talents to predict and ultimately design what customers need and want. Not to take anything away from their team of designers, the reality is that Apple has invested significant amounts of time, money, and effort to ensure that they are aligned and in-tune with the customers who consistently line up to spend money for their products.
The Apple Customer Pulse is yet another example of how they view customer alignment as a key ingredient within their overall formula for success, and not just an activity to have customers tell them if they are happy or not. The Customer Pulse program is by invitation only to select customers, and involves soliciting input from these key customers up to two times per month.
The other interesting lesson that can be learned from Apple and this new program is that it is OK to be selective with the types of customers that you solicit for feedback. Not only would it be a huge undertaking to solicit, process, and analyze feedback from every single customer, a more selective strategy allows you to focus on the types of customers that you would ultimately like to replicate. The best way to find more of your “ideal” customers is to engage and collaborate with your current “ideal” customers.
